Using her mouse, she looked left. There was her battered coffee mug, the one with the faded NASA logo. She looked down. The tattered spine of the Quick Reference Handbook lay in the side pocket. She looked right. The first officer’s seat was empty, the sun visor flipped down. Then she looked up .

The next day, she walked out to the same aircraft, now fueled and ready for a red-eye to London. She buckled into the captain’s seat and, without thinking, reached up and ran her fingertip across the trim around the emergency lighting test button.

She smiled. "Hello, old friend."

The main windshield. The rain was frozen in time—a million digital droplets suspended against the runway lights. Beyond the glass, the control tower glowed amber. And beyond that, the black shape of the Olympic Mountains cut into a bruised purple sky.